As a volunteer firefighter after 9/11, Kevin Maxwell spent seven months carrying out search and rescue operations at ground zero, filling up buckets of debris to create pathways into the rubble. It wasn't just a job for Maxwell but "a calling"; he was searching to find some of the 18 friends from the fire department he lost in the attacks.

Maxwell, 72, eventually retired and moved to Virginia in 2011. By then he'd been diagnosed with asthma, sinusitis and an anxiety disorder — common conditions for first responders and survivors of 9/11. So when he began feeling a sharp pain in his right lung in 2018, his pulmonologist immediately recommended an X-ray. Maxwell's service meant he was entitled to free health care for any ailments deemed medically connected to his exposure at ground zero. Relieved that he didn't have to worry about whether he could afford the scan, Maxwell scheduled it.

His relief, however, dissolved when a letter from a collection agency landed on his doorstep. Months later, after another procedure, it happened again, and then again and again, until Maxwell was "getting hounded about money" by bill collectors.